Editor's note: The Hearst Art Gallery at Saint
Mary's College provided source material to Resource Library for the
following article or essay. If you have questions or comments regarding
the source material, please contact the Hearst Art Gallery at Saint Mary's
College directly through either this phone number or web address:

On view at the Hearst
Art Gallery at Saint Mary's College from May 3 through June 22, 2008 will
be the largest public exhibition ever of work by University of California,
Davis faculty members Robert Arneson, Roy De Forest, Manuel Neri, Wayne
Thiebaud and William T. Wiley.

"History was made in the Central Valley in the early
'60s when five great artists came together on the same faculty for over
a decade and changed the nature and perception of art in California forever,"
said Nelson Gallery director Renny Pritikin. "We are tremendously excited
to be able, for the first time, to display the best of these little-seen
works in a single exhibit -- and to be able to travel the collection."

The exhibition includes 36 works from the Nelson's permanent
collection. "The Palace at 9 a.m.," Arneson's enormous ceramic
ode to his '50s-era Davis tract home, will anchor the show, together with
three Thiebaud masterworks and three of Neri's most admired figurative sculptures.
"Crash," Arneson's bronze homage to Jackson Pollock, is also included,
together with rarely seen paintings, drawings and prints by De Forest and
Wiley. The five Davis artists are sometimes identified with "California
funk," characterized by bawdy irreverence, iconoclasm and self-deprecating
humor.

All five artists came to teach at UC Davis between 1960
and 1965. Thiebaud, at 86 one of the most popular and respected American
painters of the 20th century, continues to teach UC Davis art students.
Arneson, who played a critical role in the elevation of ceramics from craft
to fine art, remained on the faculty until his death from cancer in 1992
at age 62. Neri, regarded as one of America's most important figurative
sculptors and the leading Latino artist of his generation, was a faculty
member for 25 years. De Forest, who died last May at age 77, also spent
nearly a quarter century on the faculty, amassing a body of work that continues
to reflect and shape Northern California culture today. Wiley, who developed
perhaps the most original and influential drawing style of his time, spent
a decade teaching and creating art on the Davis campus. The three surviving
artists continue to make strong work well into their 60s, 70s and beyond.

Julia Marshall, an art historian at San Francisco State
University, notes that "the UC Davis campus was originally an offshoot
of the Bay Area art world but soon became a center of its own, one that
in many ways eclipsed the Bay Area scene and invigorated and shaped the
entire region. Perhaps the biggest accomplishment of the Davis/Bay Area
artists at this time was the development of an alternative to New York,
a regional art that spoke to and for Northern California and replaced the
pretensions of the East Coast art world with an earthy, honest and vital
local West Coast authenticity."

The "You See" exhibition was made possible in
part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

(above: Manuel Neri, credit line pending)

(above: Manuel Neri, credit line pending)

(above: Robert Arneson, Crash, credit line pending)

(above: Robert Arneson, Crash, credit line pending)

Related event

A panel discussion with Neri, Renny Pritikin, exhibition
curator, Brian Gross, longtime representative of Arneson's and De Forest's
work, and moderated by San Francisco artist Jessica Dunne, will take place
on Sunday, May 4, at 2 p.m., in the Soda Activity Center. A reception in
the Hearst patio will follow the program.

The Richard
L. Nelson Gallery & The Fine Arts Collection web site features
apanel discussion video that is available for download from its
Archive section. The "You See: Manuel Neri, Wayne Thiebaud
and William T. Wiley" panel discussion was held November 13, 2007
at the Studio Theatre at the Mondavi Center, UC Davis, Moderated by Michael
Schwager, curator of the di Rosa Preserve.

TFAO also suggests these DVD or VHS videos:

Behind the Scenes with Wayne Thiebaud is a 30 minute 1992 video released by First Run Features based
on a series by PBS. Follows American painter Wayne Thiebaud (b. 1920) as
he uses drawing to expand children's understanding of line from simple
outline to its creation of volume, shape, feeling, and movement

Wayne Thiebaud: Line:30 minutes 1992 "When is a line not a line?
When it's volume, shape, movement, and feeling. At first glance, the lines
in Wayne Thiebaud's drawing look simple. Gradually, the line becomes more
complex as the linear structure of a portrait of an ice cream cone is revealed.
Hosted by the comedy team Penn and Teller, this program is designed to
instill creative and critical thinking skills in children through the exploration
of the visual and performing arts."

TFAO does not maintain a lending library of videos or sell videos.Click here
for information on how to borrow or purchase copies of VHS videos and DVDs
listed in TFAO's Videos -DVD/VHS, an authoritative guide to videos in VHS and DVD format.

Links to sources of information outside of our web site
are provided only as referrals for your further consideration. Please use
due diligence in judging the quality of information contained in these and
all other web sites. Information from linked sources may be inaccurate or
out of date. TFAO neither recommends or endorses these referenced organizations.
Although TFAO includes links to other web sites, it takes no responsibility
for the content or information contained on those other sites, nor exerts
any editorial or other control over them. For more information on evaluating
web pages see TFAO's General Resources
section in Online Resources for Collectors and Students of Art History.